Chapter Text
Eddie went home after Derry, because, well, what else was he going to do? The drive back to the city was a blur. It wasn’t until the next morning, when he woke automatically at 6 am and was going through his morning routine like it was just an ordinary day, that he remembered he had been terrorized by an ancient god for his whole life. And at that point, what was he going to do? Unwash his face? Mess up his combed hair and go back to bed? He hadn’t fallen out of reality. He still required money, like every other human. He got dressed and went to work, like always, except this time he thought about how he had killed an alien. Well, pretty much. The others had done the actual killing blow, but he had at least gotten the assist.
Work was normal. All week it was normal. He went through claims and input his reports and he occasionally went for a walk outside. He didn’t talk to anyone at work. His life was unchanged. It made Eddie wonder if anything had changed, really.
He still hated his life. Well, not hate, not really. He didn’t feel strongly enough about it to have any emotions about it. His whole life felt gray. Work was boring and mindless and soul-crushing, but the crushing happening slow enough he didn’t feel it, like boiling a frog. He could get through 8 hours, so he did, and then he had enough of a break before he did it again that he could handle another 8 hours.
His marriage had felt the same, before he left and came back nearly the same but not quite. Something he could tolerate, and so he had. When he’d gotten back to New York, back to their apartment, he'd kicked off his shoes and seen Myra asleep on the couch. Eddie had frozen, not even breathing, until he was confident she hadn’t woken up. He had known then. He had thought to himself, so clearly he might have even said it out loud, if she says a single word to me I’m gone. He had meant it, too.
Myra hadn’t said a word to him. Not since he’d left and she’d begged him to stay. She ignored him, freezing him out in the same way she had after Eddie had blown up at her mother during one Christmas when she had insinuated that he was infertile. That time, she had lasted three days giving him the cold shoulder.
She didn’t even look him in the eye. Eddie sat on the couch in perfect silence and felt nothing but relief. He was a coward. Because he could stand it, he stayed.
That was his life. He went to work, managed not to kill anyone or himself or do something stupid like strip off all his clothes and run through the office screaming, just for some relief from the monotony. Then he went home and heard his wife talking on the phone to her sister about how Eddie was probably having an affair, that’s why he left her.
Eddie rolled his eyes at that and went to bed early. He didn’t wait for dinner. He wasn’t hungry. He wouldn’t be the first to crack and demand her attention. He slept deeply and easily that night.
He sometimes considered getting in touch with the Losers. They hadn’t exchanged numbers in Derry, and Eddie was kicking himself for being so short-sighted. What was he going to do? Try to direct-message a celebrity on Twitter? Email Ben’s firm’s generic inbox? He couldn’t even call Mike back, his cell phone somewhere under Neibolt, soaking in greywater.
He found a phone number from Bill’s website, something that looked like it hadn’t been updated since GeoCities had gone bust. He called it from the landline in the kitchen, after Myra had gone to her room for the night, looking anxiously over his shoulder as he did. He hadn’t needed to worry; it went to voicemail, the pre-message spiel from a younger Bill, his voice pitched higher and his words carefully slower, thanking him for enjoying his books and leaving feedback after the beep. Eddie had left a confused, rambling message and had been cut off in the middle of reciting his home phone number. He hung up and hadn’t tried again, figuring he was the most accessible out of everyone, with his unlocked Facebook page and his work extension posted right on his company’s public directory.
He didn’t get any calls, or any messages. He checked Facebook twice before making himself stop. He still kept an ear out for his work phone, but it never rang.
The day he saw the billboard he was preoccupied. It had been an exceptionally bad day. First his toothpaste had run out. Normally he swiped a new tube from Myra’s bathroom but she had been out too. Then the train hadn’t arrived when it was supposed to and the attendant sitting behind the information desk had kept her headphones in, even when he had waved his hands and shouted at her, so he had been late to work.
He had shared the elevator with someone from his floor and even though he had been first in the elevator and would have obviously pushed the button, she still reached out for the panel and had been visibly surprised when the button for their shared floor was already lit up. Then he had started processing a claim that had already been processed, but hadn’t been moved out of the shared drive, so that was half an hour down the toilet. The idiot had put the wrong year on it, too, so Eddie had spent his own time reading through the report to make sure there weren’t any other mistakes.
Right at the end of the day he had tried to print out a form but the last person to print hadn’t refilled the paper drawer. Eddie wasn’t an idiot so he had squirreled away a few reams at his desk and refilled it without having to go all the way to the supply cabinet, but still, it was the principle of the matter. To top it all off, when the clueless idiot had wandered back to the printer, he had wondered out loud about how the printer had refilled itself, and one of the other interns had joked about a printer fairy, even though Eddie hadn’t been quiet while grumbling about refilling it.
He stayed late to make up time and was in a horrible mood when he left. The station closest to his building was closed, cop cars around it with their lights on, because the universe was trying to punish him. He had to walk ten blocks to find one that was open, and that’s why he saw the billboard. Richie’s face, 20 feet tall, grinning down at him manically. WHAT NOW? TOUR, ONE NIGHT ONLY, right over the theater entrance where he was performing in less than an hour.
Eddie made up his mind very quickly. So quickly he only started to think it through once he was in his seat and staring up at the stage. What was his plan? He was going to watch Richie perform, and then what? Richie probably didn’t even want to see him. He hadn’t reached out to Eddie to tell him he’d be in town. Eddie didn’t know much about backstage, but surely Richie would have needed to put him on some kind of a list. If Eddie tried to sneak back there, would security drag him out, for being some kind of stalker? Did comedians even get stalkers?
Eddie was on the edge of his seat, about to walk out, when the lights went down and the show started. Eddie wasn’t in the front row, but he had fairly good vision and he knew Richie’s face better than anyone. He smiled big and wide but it didn’t reach his eyes. Richie looked exhausted. Eddie hadn’t thought comedy tours were that hard, but what did he know?
The jokes were fine. They weren’t great. There were a couple lines, offhand, that Richie tossed out that made Eddie actually laugh. But otherwise he was pretty sure it was someone else’s words Richie was mouthing. Then, before Eddie was ready for it, Richie was waving out to the audience and telling them to have a good night, and walking offstage as the curtains closed.
Eddie stood, floundering, the only one in the crowd not moving to the exits, people flowing around him like a river parting around a boulder. He started to move to the stage because he wasn’t ready to leave and, with no better ideas, hopped up onto the stage and power-walked to the backstage area. No one stopped him, maybe because he looked like he knew where he was going, or more likely because no one expected anyone to be bold enough to get up on stage.
There were only two hallways and Eddie got lucky, finding the dressing rooms and spotting one with a taped up sign reading “RICHIE TOZIER”. Eddie hesitated, his knuckles raised, and then someone turned down the hallway, their head looking down at a phone, and Eddie pushed into the room without knocking.
Richie was sitting slumped at the vanity, a puppet with the strings cut. He twitched when he heard Eddie come in but didn’t turn. Eddie took a moment to take him in. He was holding a phone in his hand but his gaze was distant, the screen black. There were dark circles under his eyes that hadn’t been on the billboard, that Eddie hadn’t been able to see from the audience.
“Hey–” Eddie started, weakly. He didn’t know what to say.
Richie heard him and twisted in his seat, dropping his phone onto his knee and then the floor, kicking it across the room with how violently he moved. Eddie stopped talking when they met eyes and Richie blanched.
Richie stared at him, wide-eyed, and Eddie couldn’t break his gaze, even though he was now feeling overwhelmingly awkward about everything. Richie hadn’t expected him, clearly, and the silence was stretching out, and Eddie didn’t know how to break it. It was the most exciting thing that had happened to him since coming home, and all he wanted to do was run home, to his safe, boring life where he wouldn’t feel this awful squirming in his guts.
Then Richie said, in a small, awful voice, “Eds?”
Eddie, at a loss for what else to do, shrugged. Richie stared at him. He hadn’t closed his mouth after speaking, so Eddie could see his crooked bottom teeth. “Hi, Rich.”
Richie went even more pale, though Eddie would have sworn it was impossible. He wavered in his seat, listing to one side. Eddie took two steps and reached out for him, and as soon as he had his hands on Richie, holding him upright, Richie made a horrific burbling noise like a drain being unclogged, then he threw up right on Eddie’s suit.
“Jesus,” Eddie said, and stepped back quickly, keeping his arms outstretched. The smell was sharp and acidic but overwhelmingly alcoholic.
“Sorry,” Richie said, unmoving. He was still staring up at Eddie. He didn’t even wipe his face, so Eddie had to look at the trickle of vomit out of the corner of his mouth.
“Sorry,” Richie said again, then, as if in explanation, “but you’re dead.”
“What?” Eddie said. Then the words registered. “No, I’m not.”
“Oh,” Richie said. Then he did something worse than throw up. He burst into tears. Loud, terrifying sobs, the kind that made him sound like he was choking. Eddie stood, trying not to move and feel the slide of the cooling vomit against more of his skin, as Richie hiccuped and coughed out more sobs.
“I–” Richie said, between gasps, “I– really muh-missed youuuuu,” the last word coming out in a wail. Then he was up on his feet, grabbing at Eddie, despite his yelp of protest, smushing the vomit between their chests as he clung onto Eddie.
Eddie resisted, out of instinct, then, jerkily, he put his hands on Richie’s back and pulled him in just that much closer. He closed his eyes. He had missed Richie too.
The moment hung in time, long enough that it felt awkward, but still, somehow, too short for Eddie. Eventually, Richie pulled back and wiped at his eyes. He wasn’t sobbing any more but he was still leaking tears, his whole face shiny with them.
“Wait, but–” Richie said. “You were dead, I don’t know how–”
Eddie’s stomach dropped, like he was on a plane going through turbulence, the worst kind, lightning flashes outside the window and stifled yelps from faceless passengers. The kind that made you pull out your phone and turn off Airplane Mode, finger hovering over the contacts list, unsure of who you wanted to call but knowing you wanted to call someone.
He backed away and Richie reached for him, then froze with his hands half-out at whatever expression Eddie could feel twisting his face up.
“Wait!” Richie said, desperate. “Okay, I won’t ask– I won’t say anything else, just– how about lunch?”
“Lunch?” Eddie said, and the surprise of it made him stop in his tracks. Richie, for the first time since Derry, gave Eddie a real smile. Small, tremulous, but real. Not like the ones from his performance. Eddie stared, fascinated.
“Lunch,” Richie confirmed. The smile disappeared, but his face was still suffused with hope and longing. “Tomorrow?”
“Okay,” Eddie said, and he felt the lurch again as he thought about lunch with Richie. The sweet smell of vomit overwhelmed him. He pushed the thought away. “Yeah, lunch – there’s a place, by my office? Uh, the Pearl Diner?” Eddie had never been and didn’t know why he had suggested it. Maybe because he had only been to places in Manhattan for work lunches and couldn’t picture Richie in them. But Richie, at an old, shitty diner, looking like it was torn out of a Hopper painting? It worked. “Maybe 11:30, to beat the rush?”
“Sounds good, sounds great– wait, Spaghetti–”
But Eddie was gone.
That night, he was so excited he barely slept. The next morning, he woke up early, before dawn, and he re-styled his hair so many times he missed his train. He was late to work but managed to sneak to his desk without getting spotted. He had an elaborate lie in his back pocket, something about bumping into a client and answering questions for them, but no one asked. Scattered, he worked on half-a-dozen different things at once – responding to the client enquiry inbox, investigating a couple claims, quality assurance on the claims reports, re-organizing the tea and coffee tray in the kitchen – and completed none of them. He took off at 11, even though he only had an hour for lunch, and the Pearl Diner was a block and a half away, just because he couldn’t stand it anymore. He felt invigorated and slightly sick, like someone had filled him with champagne and then shaken him roughly.
At the diner he waited at the hostess stand impatiently, but when he saw a booth open up in the back corner, he took it. The decision surprised him. He wasn’t one for breaking the rules of society. When he did, he felt the overwhelming certainty he would suffer the worst of any possible consequences. But he took the booth and thought, just try and take it from me with a ferocity that shocked him. If it had just been for him, he wouldn’t have done it. But doing it for Richie…
Richie deserved a booth, not the backless stools at the counter where he would have to nudge his broad shoulders up against a stranger. And Richie deserved the most private booth in the whole diner, too, even if Eddie wasn’t exactly sure how famous Richie was.
Eddie shredded his napkin, and then Richie’s, waiting for 11:30, and the worst consequence was that none of the waitstaff served him. Once Eddie realized they were refusing to serve him, he laughed under his breath. It would take more than that to get him to leave. Richie could just order for the both of them.
At 11:27, Richie blew in through the doors, skidding on one foot as he struggled to slow his momentum. He tracked in wet leaves, a few following him and sticking to the hostess stand and bar stools. His hair was a tangled mess and the circles under his eyes were, somehow, even more pronounced, and Eddie couldn’t stop looking at him. Richie’s eyes darted around the diner and then they fell on him and everything within him seemed to relax. Eddie hadn’t realized he had been holding himself as taut as a piano wire, but now he strode to the booth and collapsed in it, not even hanging up his wet jacket on the coat rack.
“Eddie,” Richie breathed. His eyes looked him up and down, again and again. Eddie didn’t know what to do with himself. He looked down at the table. “Wow, you’re really– I wanted to call you, last night, after you left, but your cell phone–”
“Yeah, I keep, uh, forgetting to get a new one,” Eddie said, awkward. Suddenly it felt very stupid. He had been putting it off, for no clear reason. Just, he went to work and came home and that was his life. He didn’t have time to shop for a new phone. Even though he had nothing else to fill the hours of his days, that was how it had felt, up until Richie questioned it. “I’ll get right on that, though.”
“Why didn’t you call us? Or, email, or anything?” Richie said, urgency under his tone. He was hunched forward over the table and talking in a low voice, like something out of a mafia movie. Trying to make a deal, sweating and desperate, while the guy across the table held all the cards. Didn’t those scenes usually end with the desperate one getting his head blown off? Eddie shuddered.
“I did,” Eddie said, too righteous for the amount of effort he had put in. “I called Bill’s stupid fan-line, and…well, you could have reached out, too, you know! I have a public Facebook, and my work extension is right there on my company’s website, it’s like the third result on Google if you search my name–”
“Eddie,” Richie said, delighted, “are you saying you regularly search your name?”
“It’s just best practice, Richie, to know what current and prospective employers can see about you–” Eddie said. He was only half as annoyed as he should be, because Richie had leaned back and gotten comfortable, was pulling off his jacket, and he had a real grin on his face too. The scene shifted in his head, becoming a loose dialogue between friends, and Eddie relaxed.
“And, what, pray tell,” Richie interrupted, “can your hypothetical prospective employers see about you on Google?”
“Nothing,” Eddie said. “Because I maintain good internet hygiene.”
Richie threw his head back and laughed. The waitress chose that moment to come get his order.
“Oh, uh,” Richie said, wide-eyed. Then, to Eddie, “what’s good here?”
Eddie opened his mouth to bullshit a reply but the waitress started to list off the specials. Eddie frowned at her. Terrible service in this place, which he already knew, but this was a bit much.
Richie nodded along and then said, “Uh, two of the burgers, but give me one of them with the bun on the side, please.” He took a quick glance to Eddie and asked, “Is that okay? Sorry, just, since you’re busy, then we can get our food quicker–”
“That’s fine,” the waitress said, and then left.
“Fucking rude,” Eddie said, then said to Richie, “I forgot about the burgers we used to get–”
“From Joe’s, yeah,” Richie said, and his eyes lit up. “Christ, I knew you loved ‘em, or else I wouldn’t have ordered it, but I forgot how fucking nuts you would go for them–”
“I wasn’t nuts, asshole, just, you know the kind of shit my mom fed me–”
“Yeah, yeah,” Richie waved his hand at Eddie dismissively. “But I never saw you horking the ribs–”
Eddie gagged and threw some of the napkin confetti into Richie’s dumb, open mouth. “Fucking horking, never say that shit again– in fact, maybe don’t say anything–”
“Aw, Eds,” Richie half laughed, half coughed, digging at his tongue with his dirty fingers to get the rest of the soggy napkin out. Disgusting, Eddie thought, riveted. “You mean you didn’t like my show?”
“Oh,” Eddie said, then, too quick, “no, I, um, I really– liked it?”
“Jesus,” Richie said. His energy had dipped a bit but he just looked amused, maybe a hint of bitterness in the corner of his mouth, but no surprise or sadness on his face. Not that Eddie could see, but maybe that didn’t mean anything anymore, if it ever did. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“No,” Eddie protested, “no, it had, uh, like…great delivery.”
Richie rolled his eyes but the bitter edge to the smile softened. “Thanks,” he said, and it sounded genuine. Eddie relaxed a bit into his seat again. He had somehow made it to the edge without noticing. “No, don’t worry. I know it’s shit material.”
“Oh, good,” Eddie said, relieved. Richie laughed, less than before, but still a real laugh. “Why the hell are you still doing that shit?” Richie tilted his head at Eddie, playing dumb. “You know what I mean. That was someone else’s words, right? I thought you were maybe gonna stop that, after–”
“Well,” Richie said, and the bitterness was back, spreading across his face like an oil stain on a tablecloth. “It’s a bit hard to come up with good chucks when your best friend is dead.”
Eddie blinked at him, not understanding, and then it hit him. The diner, so loud so close to lunch, went muffled and slow around them. “Are you talking about me? Are you really blaming me for not coming up with new material? You know, like, what your fucking job is? You’re really gonna sit here and pretend like you didn’t just ignore me after Derry, and fucking put all your baggage on me? What, did thinking I was dead absolve you of the responsibility to check in on your lamest childhood friend?”
Eddie was vibrating with rage. Colors flickered in and out of his vision. He hadn’t gotten this mad since before Derry, when he used to get road rage twice a day. With his car wrecked and his phone buried 60 feet under, he hadn’t had much to get angry over. The intensity of it felt so unfamiliar, he couldn’t be sure he had ever been this mad in his whole life.
Richie looked scared, on the other side of the booth. The diner was completely still around them, like every patron and maybe even the building itself was holding its breath. Eddie looked at him and thought, you would be so easy to kill, and the thought jolted him out of his anger and back into the real world. The diner went back to normal, the hubbub of conversation rising over them again.
“What the fuck was that?” Richie breathed. He, alone, still looked shaken.
“Fuck,” Eddie said. “Fuck, I don’t–”
“Two Chef’s burgers,” The waitress dropped two plates on their table with a clatter. “One regular, one bun on the side.”
Eddie couldn’t stay like this, not with Richie looking at him like that. Without meaning to, or thinking it through, he left and found himself back at work. He breathed in the neutral scent of the dry recycled air and found himself relaxing against his will. He didn’t want to think, so he pulled up one of the claims he had started and then abandoned, and went to work.
It was nearly quitting time when his desk phone rang. It startled Eddie, the familiar noise from so close after so long, and it startled the guy in the next cubicle over, too. Eddie stared at the phone, knowing in his gut who it was.
“Do you hear that? Sounds like that phone at the empty desk is ringing.” The guy next to him said, distantly. Eddie breathed in and out, hard, then picked up the receiver.
“Oh, it stopped. Freaky.” The guy said. Eddie ignored him.
On the other side of the line, he could hear faint breathing, staticky but familiar.
“Richie?” Eddie said, eventually.
“Yeah,” Richie said. “I'm here.”
“Are you– um. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m good,” Richie said, breezy. “Just wanted to check in. See if you’re okay. You know, after lunch.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. He clutched the receiver harder. He wasn't sweating but the receiver still felt like it could slip out of his fingers at any second. “Yeah, I’m fine. I'm, you know. Calm. So. That's good. Better.”
“Oh, good,” Richie said, breezy, “because I was a little worried when you fucking faded out of existence like Marty Mc-fuckin’-fly.”
“Wha–” Eddie said, then it registered for him. Richie thought he had just disappeared into nothingness. Like he wasn’t even real.
The bottom of his stomach dropped out and he hung up the phone, quick. He ran to the bathroom, abandoning his overcoat on his chair, and heaved until he felt like he couldn't anymore. Nothing came up, not after he had run out on lunch, of course. Not even a hint of bile.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, shaky, then left the bathroom, walked down the stairs in order to get some cardio in, and caught the train home right on time. When he got home he didn't even bother looking for Myra, just hung up his overcoat on his special padded hanger and put his shoes in their spot on the rack, then went straight to bed without dinner. He wasn't hungry.